The number one digital currency has breached several support levels and is currently languishing below $4,500, anchoring a freefall that commenced last week before the Bitcoin Cash hard forking. The hard fork civil war had dampened market sentiment since the start of November.

According to the head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, there are two types of crypto players, those using it and have wallets in crypto, and those who speculate. Lee stated during the recent Squawk Box interview that those two players in the crypto community should figure out a way to interact with each other in order to prevent crypto investors from getting hurt by crashes like this.

While insisting on his bullish prediction, Lee, however, acknowledge that the crypto markets in the past few days have certainly seen a negative development, which has caused a downside of the momentum, but he later said that in the meantime, investors are not necessarily getting hurt due to the recent market downturn.

In this regard, the bullish Bitcoin figurehead emphasized the vital role of institutional involvement in the crypto industry, thus predicting that this part of the market will result in a “next wave of the adoption” and also help in pushing the market back up.

Two major factors that will increase widespread Bitcoin adoption

There are two key factors, according to Lee, that will soon increase the adoption of Bitcoin and also bring more institutional interest to the crypto markets.

#1 The highly-anticipated launch of Bakkt

The first major event will be the is the highly-anticipated launch of the digital assets platform Bakkt by the operator of major global exchange Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). While the announcement was made in August 2018, Bakkt recently confirmed that the launch is slated for January 24, 2019.

#2 Regulatory clarity

The second factor that will boost adoption and also get institutions more involved in the crypto market is when the industry gets clarification of regulatory oversight which Lee said is partly “underway now.” He further added:

Once we have that, I think, institutions will feel more comfortable in making bets.

Bart Smith emphasizes crypto is a ‘long game’

In a related development, the head of digital asset at global trading and technology company Susquehanna, Bart Smith has said he is still a long-term Bitcoin believer despite the market crash.

While speaking during an episode of CNBC’s “Fast Money” Smith, who is also known by the moniker of Crypto King, highlighted that this was a “long game and every great idea is volatile.”

The Crypto King further argued that while figures from the world of mainstream equity strategy might have taken to treating Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an “asset class,” this is not what it was originally meant for. He noted:

The desire to have a non-sovereign form of currency has existed forever. Remember, (BTC) came out of the depths of the financial crisis, let’s see what happens next year. Let’s see if central banks in the US and Europe can unwind this thing successfully and then see what people want to own.

BTCUSD technical analysis

On Tuesday, the BTCUSD pair was in a bearish trend as the price dropped to the low of $4,571. On the lower time frame, the price declined to the low of $4,510 and then started a range bound movement. A look at the daily chart shows that the Stochastic is in the range below 20 thus indicating a strong bearish trend.

Bitcoin price is still below the 12-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMA) and the 26-day EMA is showing that it is in the bearish trend zone. Nevertheless, a bearish trend line is drawn to establish the continuity of the bearish trend.

Meanwhile, the BTCUSD is in a sideways trend as the 4-hour chart indicates. A bearish trend line drawn shows the resistance levels of the price. The downward trend ends if the price breaks the trend line and if the following candlestick closes on the opposite side. From the chart, a bullish candlestick has broken the trend line and was closed opposite.

Technically speaking, the bearish trend can be said to over. Additionally, the red and blue bands of the stochastic are above the range of 20. This shows a buy signal and also indicates that the ongoing trend has been reversed.

Resistance levels: $7,000, $7,200, $7,400

Support levels: $4,400, $4,200, $4,000

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